


the devil vowed, "i do"

by dmasiv



Category: Hinatazaka46 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, F/F, VERY UNRELIABLE NARRATOR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26213959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dmasiv/pseuds/dmasiv
Summary: The god for the gays sends a call and says she's The First Mankind and Takamoto Ayaka is either Eve or The Devil. She's given the liberty to choose, but not to resist.(Kyoko deals with the wife and the kid her late best friend left. And it's less a journey and more of a trial.)
Relationships: Saito Kyoko/Takamoto Ayaka
Comments: 11
Kudos: 25





	1. kyoko screwed up

For one 27-years-old Saito Kyoko, the worst part about high school reunion isn’t the run-in with the girl that made derisive, dehumanizing jokes over her lack of enthusiasm for the male species back then, or all the _hey, remember when_ talks and their uncomfortable degree of familiarity.

Consider this: a reunion with the wife (ex-wife?) of your late best friend because for some reason some dumbass from your class decided to take her along to the event. His untimely passing was a year ago.

There’s something fucked up with this set-up! It feels strangely scripted, cheaply-directed, and it looks like it would wound up on some person’s mocking post of a monthly Netflix specials round-up!

The aforementioned dumb of ass of a classmate (Kato Shiho) led the widow onto her, forced her to croak out the hoarsest self-introduction ever _and_ made her backpedal on it soon after because _they’ve actually met before_ . They’ve had family dinners together as a band of five. _You’ve even had my cooking before!_ She added. Kyoko had seen her in maternal dresses, in the firm embrace of a wedding dress, in the receiving end of forehead kisses from her late best friend. In her best. In her completeness: with her husband (alive) and her meek daughter (smiling, her teeth taking up the three-fourth of her face). In her worst: in the clutch of all-black attire, in front of the altar for her late best friend (say his name already, coward, _Sato Keigo_ ), in shadowed gaze, in the short sequence their eyes met during the wake, in what possibly was the longest, most stretched pause of Kyoko’s life.

(In the way she looked at Kyoko first. In the way she was _also_ the first to tore her eyes off, and not the other way around.)

“Sorry. I was kinda out of it?” Don’t flinch, Saito Kyoko. Hold your ground, Saito Kyoko. 

A pause.

“It’s, it’s the drink. I had a long day at work.” _Nobody asked, Saito Kyoko!_

“It’s okay. I hope you don’t mind my company.”

“Not at all.”

Because they’re seated in the counter where the lighting is defiant in the way it’s dimmer than the rest. It’s their flimsy safe haven amidst the merry, merry lounge. A house made of playing cards.

Kyoko glares at her drink some more. At the rate she’s in, she could pull a Reverse Jesus and slosh it into a drinking water.

“Maybe, just maybe,” there was the sound of a swig taken beside her, a soft clinging of glass against the nail, “maybe you wouldn’t, mistake me for a stranger. Had you looked at me in the eye.”

_Don’t look up, Saito Kyoko_.

“Like I said. I’m kinda out of it tonight.”

“Hmmmm.”

“I know you’re calling me a liar in your head. I know that.”

“I can call you by your name. But…”

“But?”

“Look at me first.”

“No way, why do I have to - “

“Basic decency! Geez.”

And the silence that comes after holds a monumental importance in the forking road of Kyoko’s life. To leave her as an image of her best: in the embrace of a wedding dress, in the receiving end of Keigo’s forehead kisses.

But the god for the gays are unapologetically chaotic in that they absolutely _feed off_ drama. It’s borderline homophobic in a way. And she’ll pin the full blame on god for whatever event is about to transpire later when she’s crying in the shower.

She turns to look at her. 

To find her in a black dress that shows enough of her shoulders, to find her in what Kyoko would call a _very_ suspect widow getup down to the pop of red in her make-up. To find her in the veil of a thin tight-lipped smile, to the hooded gaze. To find her in her absolute worst yet.

The god for the gays sends a call and says she’s The First Mankind and before her is either Eve or The Devil. She’s given the liberty to choose, but not to resist.

Sato...

“You look _dead_ , Kyoko! Is it the 9-to-5 job?”

Sa… _Takamoto_ Ayaka. The Devil. She laughs, bares her teeth, and it’s a gospel to Kyoko’s ears.

Kyoko downs her glass and it tastes of drinking water.

* * *

In the reminiscent of Cinderella, Sato… _Takamoto_ Ayaka took her leave before the thirteenth hour, very much sober, but apparently wasn’t sober enough to take her handkerchief along with her. Kyoko pocketed it and held onto it and it’s been four days since and she hasn’t shown any sign of contacting _Takamoto_ Ayaka about it, because for reasons that require expositions, Kyoko doesn’t have any way to contact her saves for Ayaka’s Instagram DMs. But that would require going on her Instagram page, and consequently _seeing_ very complimenting pictures of her.

Or she can ask Shiho about it…

But that would require clicking on the 15 unopened LINE messages from Shiho (where at least 10 of them are apologies). Kyoko believes she has every right to be mad at Shiho for poking her nose on others’ business when she has an E-list, shithead of a boyfriend to break up with. _That bitch has no right to meddle!_

Team Leader Saito Kyoko peers at the clock once more. It’s 10:10 in the morning and the day is dragging long. 

Well, at least she has a report to finish. No urgency, but it’ll do for a distraction!

* * *

The time reads: 10:20.

“Um, this is Saito Kyoko.”

“ _I know. Do you have to introduce yourself every time?”_

“I don’t think we have each other’s contact saved, so - “

“ _I do._ _Have yours, I mean._ ”

“Oh.” _Oh_. Kyoko stares at her report on the screen of her office-issued PC monitor and it mocks her back. “Do you have some time?”

_Takamoto_ hums for a second. “ _I can make some,_ ”

_What a vixen!_ She’s ashamedly reeled in. “I have your handkerchief with me. Do you want me to ship it over?”

“ _We live in the same city, Kyoko_.”

Selective memories, you know! “Oh yeah, you’re right. Do you want it back?”

“ _Um, yeah. I was wondering where I left it and I’ve been looking all over for it, actually. It was a gift from Kei from back when we had our first? Second? Date. I’m glad you brought it back with you._ ”

The handkerchief in question is splayed on Kyoko’s palm. It does look rather worn out, but Kyoko can tell it’s very well-kept.

Kyoko decides that she doesn’t like it (it’s the design). 

“ _Thanks, Kyoko._ ”

“How do I hand it back?” Her grip on the phone tightens. It’s an automatic response fueled by something terrible.

“ _Actually… are you free later_?”

* * *

The Yes/No question doesn’t lead to a dinner date (haha). Instead, Kyoko finds herself in the front yard of a preschool waiting for the last bell to ring and she’s gaining stares from a flock of three mothers nearby.

Maybe it’s her white-collar getup (including her ID, which she has tucked into her breast pocket), or maybe it’s the fact that she looks like she doesn’t want to be there. 

Kyoko starts tapping an impatient foot. The stares get slightly even more judgemental… 

When the flock inch closer to her in a very, very suspecting way, Kyoko mentally lets out an infernal scream. 

“My, haven’t seen you before.”

“Yes, uh, I’m picking up for,” a _friend?_ “My sister-in-law.”

The slight lean of their heads doesn’t go unnoticed by Kyoko. She’s being pressured to cough up the name.

“Takamoto’s.”

She thinks of it better.

“Uh, Sato.”

The “ _ahhhh_ ” is sung collectively, but anything that isn’t an “ _ahhh!_ ” should make it clear that Takamoto/”Sato Ayaka” isn’t in their exclusive list of Good Moms.

“Is she doing well? It’s been a year since...”

“I think, yeah.”

“How nice of you to sneak out of work to pick up her kid. What could she possibly be doing?”

The other pipes in. “Oh, you know.”

_Oh, go to hell_. Kyoko’s eyes spark a sudden fixation with the jungle gym.

“Do you?”

The question is for her. And frankly, Kyoko _knows_. “I don’t think I have the slightest idea.”

“It’s still crazy to me, how she could do that as a mother. It’s not something fellow mothers could sympathize with.”

“Poor child, really.”

“Shush, it’s still the daytime. She couldn’t possibly be…”

“There’s an event down in the resto.” It’s high time for Kyoko to interject, because she’s a decent human being and not because she hates the idea of Takamoto getting trash-talked. “It won’t do for the best cook to skip, even just to pick up her kid.”

Kyoko thanks the bell for ringing, else she might actually start throwing hands with a bunch of moms and gets herself reported to the nearby police station and they would have to inform her workplace that she’s skipping to… throw punches with a bunch of moms in broad daylight?

Kids are filing out of the door and Kyoko tries to spot the one with the biggest set of front teeth. The problem is that Sato/Takamoto Kurumi is built gloomy and overall depressing to watch, which makes her the perfect kind to babysit but the absolute worst to have as a daughter. A shame because her mother falls apart in laughter even at the face of Keigo’s dry sense of humor.

Kurumi spots her first, but she stays rooted in her spot, so Kyoko makes the move to crouch beside her.

“Your mom asked me to pick you up.”

“Uhh…”

“Sorry. Do you even remember me?”

She nods and her body lightly sways left to right. 

Kyoko lights up her phone to check the time and she learns that she has three and a half hours left to keep the kid occupied. And - _oh my god_ , she’s _terrible_ with kids. 

“Umm, let’s… let’s get in the car.”

* * *

Kyoko kidnaps Kurumi to her workplace and the elevator to her floor dings open to the sight of her junior, Watanabe Miho, wide-eyed.

“She doesn’t look like you at all…”

“At least ask WHOSE kid is this first!”

She walks with Miho and Kurumi in tow to their shared workspace and tries her best to explain the predicament she’s put in as succinctly and objectively as possible.

Miho eyes Kurumi for a second before she throws a stinky eye at her own senior. “Is the mom that hot?”

“You think I could refuse? My friend would haunt me to sleep.”

“The heck are you talking about, senpai? You aren’t superstitious.”

“Just a little.”

“You left me alone that time I got possessed in the cursed _ryokan_ our last team-building held in and said I was faking it! Fuck, Konoka had to tie me up because by the time Manamo got onto me I was ready to commit a mass murder!”

“Sheesh, that was just one time. I was the one looking for Miyata from Human Resources so you should _thank_ me.”

Kurumi, cute as a button she is, receives a loud welcome from the R&D team in the form of squeeing and is quickly crowded around like she’s the best thing since sliced bread. Naturally, she’s cowering in fear as her grip on Kyoko’s dress pants evolves into the death grip of someone clinging to their life.

“Alright, alright, where’s Miyata?!” Kyoko slaps Suzuka’s grabby hand away from Kurumi’s cheek.

Konoka looks baffled. “Are you making her babysit Kururun? You can’t return her to her mom with a brain damage, senpai!”

“Who’s “Kururun”? It’s been ten goddamn minutes…”

Fortunately, everyone in the R&D team despises their job enough to actually keep Kurumi company as they flock around the girl. With the help of Miyata Manamo from Human Resources (who also abhors her job), Kurumi is coaxed into showing her trademark teethy smile as she takes on another round of thumb sumo against Tomita. Whose losing streak wasn’t on purpose in the slightest.

There’s something picturesque about the scene of Takamoto Kurumi and the R&D team looking the most alive they’ve been all week, so Kyoko figures it’s a good time to inform Takamoto Ayaka that it’s no longer kidnapping since “Kururun” herself is having a great time.

She makes a LINE call to The Mom.

“I have your kid.”

“ _Can you word it in the way that I wouldn’t mistake it as a kidnapping?_ ”

Kurumi gleefully announces her win from Tomita for the fourth time. “Do you want me to deliver Kurumi over?”

“ _You don’t mind driving Kurumi to where I work? Oh. I finish up at five._ ”

“Yeah, it’s alright. Send me the address by LINE.”

“ _Thanks. Also stop referring to kids like they’re grocery products. Can I see her?_ ”

Kyoko finds herself stripped off any basic communication skills needed to refuse and it’s the office Wi-Fi provider’s fault for revving the internet speed enough that Ayaka’s honeyed _can I see her?_ is heard by Kyoko in the highest aural quality possible.

She switches over to a video call and Takamoto Ayaka takes up the entire screen and they all crowd around the phone and Takamoto Ayaka greets them all back. The new intern guy shifts to the side to get a better look (of Takamoto Ayaka?).

Beside her, Miho sounds out an accusing, _oya?_

“What is it, Watanabe.”

“Well, senpai, _that_ explains why you’re willing to deal with kids.”

* * *

As it turns out, the family restaurant Takamoto Ayaka cooks for is an hour drive from her office. Two hours of drive from the preschool.

“Thanks for driving Kurumi, Kyoko. Please stop scowling, you’re making me feel _bad_.”

Takamoto Ayaka whispers a quick _wait here, okay_ as she scurries back to the pantry to retrieve the rest of her belongings, probably. The creases around Kyoko’s eyebrows unclip themselves as she studies Kurumi’s side-profile. 

“Were they fun? The big bros and the big sis.”

“Suzu- _nee_ was so funny.” Kurumi balls her fists into her killer thumb sumo stance. “She was so weak!”

Kyoko laughs and crouches to Kurumi’s eye-level. “Kurumi-chan was too strong.”

“But I couldn’t beat Miho-nee…”

“Wanna have a rematch?”

Of course it was said as an empty promise because Kyoko doesn’t plan to play the babysitter any longer, and this might as well be their parting for another year, or for the next time they meet with Kyoko in ashes and the Takamoto duo mourning out of social obligations. Still, Kurumi’s nod has a tad too much vigor in it.

The creases creep back when she notices that Kurumi got Keigo’s nose.

So when Takamoto Ayaka comes speed-walks back to them, she’s met with Kyoko’s scowl once more.

“Kuru - oh, Kyoko. You’re still here?” 

Kyoko produces the handkerchief from her bag and Takamoto Ayaka takes it, very gently.

“How are you getting home?”

“The train, like usual.” 

“Keigo used to…”

“We sold Kei’s car off. I can’t drive, you see… and no time to actually learn how to. Why?”

Kyoko recalls the one hour drive. Two, from the preschool. At the slight tilt of Takamoto Ayaka’s head, Kyoko’s rationale ricochets somewhere far, far away…

“I’ll drive you both home.”

\--

Some things are better left revisited later when you’re in the bath, crying. Volunteering to drive Takamoto Ayaka and Kurumi back home and agreeing to have dinner there is one of those. (Kyoko mentally notes: it was a half an hour drive.)

Over the table, Kurumi recounts to her mom her time in Kyoko’s office while Kyoko savors the home-made meals. They taste foreign against the tongue that lives off convenient store microwavable meals, but they taste _great_. 

“Hmmm what do you think, Kyoko?”

“Oh. Oh yeah, Watanabe looked really dumb going all-out against a kid.”

“No, silly. I mean the food!”

“It’s… it’s good. Best meals I’ve had in awhile.” _No, silly! Don’t say that! Playing with fire, right there!_

“That’s good to hear. You should come over and have dinner with us sometime. Kei has told me all the stories of your disaster cooking and I’m just gonna assume that you haven’t gotten any better in a year.”

This is the part where she could say, _it’s okay, I’m good_. Keyword: she could. She looks up from her bowl and both Takamoto Ayaka and Kurumi have the exact same expectant look.

“Okay.”

Later, Kyoko doesn’t cry in the bath, but only because she puts her call with Mao on loudspeaker with the volume put on the slider’s loudest. Mao’s funny story about a weepy manchild of a Snack customer ends abruptly after Kyoko let it slip that she had dinner with Keigo’s wife and kid.

“ _But you know, speaking of Aya-chan. Or well,_ Cherry _. The ever-popular Cherry. Talk about a small world, a customer wept about how he was so hung up on her some days ago. He was such a manchild he scared my part-timers off. I told him his chances with Cherry were in the negatives and he started hitting the karaoke. What kinda low of a life do you have to hit for you to fall for a_ cabakura _hostess? The Belle of the district, to boot!_ ”

Kyoko sinks a two-third of her face into the bathwater so that she could mistake the tears for that of irritation. 

* * *

On her fourth time having dinner in the Takamoto household, she lays it down to herself that what she feels towards Ayaka and Kurumi is a sense of obligation and it grows stronger by each visit to Keigo’s altar.

On her fifth time there, she’s reminded of the one hour drive and the two hours it would take to the kindergarten.

On her sixth time there,

“Don’t you live too far from Kurumi-chan’s school?”

“ _Quite_ , yeah. Kei used to drive Kurumi there because it was close to where he worked, but.”

“You should look for a closer place.”

“I’m planning to move, actually. But, expenses. It’s going to take another three months if I don’t count things wrong, but I already checked with three different people so my calculation _should_ be spot-on.”

“Do you want to move in with me?”

Kyoko stares at her own bowl of rice so that she won’t have to see how Ayaka looks right now.

“Until you can pay for all the expenses, I mean.”

“Huh,”

“It’s - got to be tiring for you and Kurumi-chan to take long train rides. And, and I get to have homey meals.”

“You aren’t joking, right? ‘Cause I’m about to say yes.”

“It’s the least I can do for Keigo.”

“Okay. Okay, yes. It’s a deal!”

Kyoko takes another ten seconds time-out before she finally looks up from her bowl of rice and -

And Ayaka grins at her and says, _thanks_ and it’s a hook, line, and sinker. Said exactly ten seconds after the last _it’s a deal_. Truly, Kyoko’s dealing with The Devil.


	2. god screwed everyone over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very light chapter. i came to the self-realization that im unfunnier than i thought i was?
> 
> to the 3 people who read this, thank you for bearing with me
> 
> mulan jameelah - bukannya aku takut

Keigo was a friend from middle school while Kumi and co. are the people she had a fated run-in during her first year in high school. They formed an intersecting Venn diagram of Kyoko’s meager network of friends. Ayaka didn’t come to her life until all the way later when she was working on the final thesis for her bachelor’s degree and Keigo, pure-hearted, meek Keigo introduced Ayaka to Kyoko in splices and stutters, “Kyoko, I, uh, found _the_ girl.”

This network of friends finally came in handy when the other day, she announced it to them that she would be holding a housewarming party. Nobody replied at first until Mana asked if Kyoko would play the host down to preparing the food and Kyoko said she WON’T, but Ayaka will. The replies came flooding in: “What the _fuck,_ Kyoko?” 

Each of them followed by: “OK!”

Sarina did show a genuine concern, but Kyoko was dead-sure everyone else was in it for the food and the drama.

Kyoko has been looking forward to The Sunday, where she will start eating homemade meals for the next three months and the TV set will finally see its use as something other than Kyoko’s surefire way to kill the silence when it starts to press too hard onto her guts. She also gets to boss her friends around as they stagger into the unit carrying boxes.

“Yes, yes, a little closer to the left. Careful - _yeowch_! Put it gently! That’s KEIGO right there!”

Shiho and Mirei word an apology to the altar, fearing divine indignation that comes with accidental disrespect for the dead.

The one downside to this whole ordeal is that she’s going to have Keigo haunt her ass for finding Ayaka hot. But then again, Keigo is _nice_ down to a fault, unlike Kyoko, who started seeing her best friend’s woman as something more than her best friend’s woman a month after she got over the fact that someone as nice as Keigo picked up a hostess for a girlfriend.

An interesting conversation of note:

In Mana’s hands are two unopened bottles of Chardonnay. She tries to read the cursive French writing out loud until Ayaka manifests to her side carrying a box with Kurumi sticking close to her legs. 

“These look like they’re worth five of Miipan’s oden cart. For each bottle.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, they’re gifts from work.”

Kyoko shares a look with Mao. She shares another look with Kumi.

The stars align the moment Ayaka receives a call “from work”, excusing herself to the hallway outside. Kurumi tails after her in hasty skips even though it’s hardly her first time meeting with any of the “big sis”. 

Silence occurs into the room. 

For all the three hours that have gone into the slave labor and constant berating of Mao for stepping on others’ feet, they have yet to address the mammoth in the room.

But this moment is _it_. 

Shiho whirls herself around. “Um. Toilet.” 

Until Kyoko pulls her into a headlock.

“EXPLAIN YOURSELF! WHY DID YOU GET HER ON MY CASE!”

Mirei throws an accusing finger. “ _You_ explain yourself, Kyoko! Why are they MOVING IN!”

“Well fuck you ALL! I wouldn’t have asked her to if - “

Sarina looks up from her phone, charged to a wall socket right beside the altar. “You _asked_ her to?”

Mana assumes the role of the watchdog as she has her eyes on the entrance way. “What do you mean by ‘you _all_ ’. We are largely uninvolved.”

“FIVE of Shiho’s fifteen LINE apologies had all the wrong characters. Some others had words like “conjecture”. Neither Mirei nor Shiho would use the word “conjecture”!”

She throws a stink-eye at Sarina.

“Sorry.” Mao croaks out and everyone else that isn’t Sarina (who actually looks guilty) let out a chorus of groans.

Kyoko considers it a mistake to let Shiho wriggle free because what she drops a second after bears the weight of the hypothetical prehistoric age meteorite, bringing the mammoth in the room to a _poof_ : “Ayaka reached out to us first. She wanted to get in touch with you.”

“Why?”

Shiho redirects the question to Kumi with a raise of brows, who pinballs it to Mana, who passes it onto Mao, who then surrenders into Kyoko’s glowering look: “Sorry. YOU ask her! That’s healthy communication, pal!”

“You can’t just say _healthy communication_ after all this,” Kyoko throws her face into her open palms.

“Sorry. Kumi, say something!”

“You think I could just go up to her and ask, _why did you look for me, knowing I was into you for years even though at the time you were his girlfriend and later wife and later wife with_ **_an offspring_ ** _?_ You think I could ask her that without wanting to guillotine myself a second later?”

When Kyoko pulls her head back up, there’s Ayaka and Kurumi with a duffel bag making a beeline for the bedroom and the time doesn’t quite stop. Instead, it accelerates, much like the way Kyoko’s heart repeatedly slams itself against her ribcage with a rabid frenzy. Longing for that _sweet release of death_.

Kyoko speed-walks into the toilet and locks herself in there for a half an hour.

* * *

Dinner is great because it’s mostly conversations about the foods and how Kurumi’s doing in school. 

Kumi and Sarina keep the conversation going at all costs, most likely to make up for the mess that caused Kyoko to do some soul-searching in the toilet for a half an hour.

They all take their leave before eight, not too long after Kurumi let slip a yawn she had been holding in. 

What comes after is the talk about the sleeping arrangement. Kyoko’s unit only has one bedroom and it takes three rowed “ _I don’t mind_ ”s for Kyoko to finally convince Ayaka that she can take her _futon_ to the living room, that she’d mind the idea of sleeping with Ayaka (and Kurumi) more.

Ayaka gives Kurumi a peck on her half-closed eyelids. Kyoko watches from the corner of her eyes. 

“See you tomorrow, Kyoko.”

Left alone, the ceiling hangs over her, whining at the glares it’s thrown at. It’s a 10 PM that feels like the hour deep past the 12 AM, where the universe is the most vulnerable, where the tears shed against the pillow, however vile, are forgiven. 

But Kyoko doesn’t cry. At least not tonight. Tonight, she lies on her back, feeling 22 all over again: Of Kyoko wanting to douse herself in fire so that everything could end in a single moment. Of Ayaka knowing and understanding. 

* * *

Kyoko gets over things quickly, the way The First Mankind gets banished from heaven one day and invents the ingenious concept of bonfire the next. 

(She wakes up to the smell of Miso soup and Ayaka’s sing-songed _wake up!_ and for the first few minutes where she’s still struggling to gather herself, she plays around the idea that she might have gotten married the day before.)

* * *

The Saito household isn’t particularly pious, but Kyoko knows enough that god supposedly has everything predetermined, and that includes what they have for breakfast. This is largely why she doesn’t complain about the grilled mackerel despite the fish having histories of giving her allergic reactions.

Kyoko suggests that they start laying down their routines and daily schedules. 

Kurumi finishes school around 12 PM and Ayaka usually takes the first shift, picks Kurumi up from school, drops her back at her place, and goes back to finish the rest of her shift.

“I have _work_ at night and sometimes Kurumi can’t sleep without me. But singing a lullaby should work. Kei was really good. _You’re_ really good.”

“I’m better.”

“Fine. Kei was good. You’re _really_ good. Start learning cute songs!”

The last time Kyoko sang in front of her was back in her wedding with Keigo, five years ago. 

Kyoko scrubs her plate with tremendous intensity. 

She drives both Ayaka and Kurumi to her kindergarten and Ayaka takes off to the train station nearby. On her lone drive, Kyoko brushes herself up on pop songs with silly lyrics about likening having crushes to the missing Fa in a major scale. If god is the troll sentient Kyoko has always pictured him to be, then she has roughly three days before she has to perform a song for Kurumi that isn’t a hit from the 80’s.

* * *

She wasn’t being paranoid. Lying down beside Kurumi, she settles with the non-comfortable position of having her head propped up with a hand as she sings the song to a T until she starts making up the lyrics from the second verse onwards. 

_Kyonko-nee is really good_ , Kurumi says, three-fourth asleep. Kyoko moves onto the bridge.

In Kyoko’s version, the Fa is found healthy and sound and home. The missing Fa reemerges from the night and tells Kyoko that more than anything, she wants to belong. In this version, the Fa finds the concept of liberty much, much less comforting.

* * *

“Uh, it came off. Aya?”

The octopus wiener now has three legs instead of four. Exactly a beat after she told Ayaka that, despite having the reputation of being a terrible cook, octopus wiener is in her (very) short list of things she can make without burning the building down.

“I’m putting that in yours.”

“Mine?”

Ayaka, on the fryer, turns to her. The dark rims around her eyes much contrast her complexion. “I’m packing you lunch too.”

“It’s fine, I eat in the cafeteria with the others. Actually. My juniors might start questioning me if I got married overnight.”

Ayaka places the _dashi-tamago_ in Kurumi’s box with a practiced precision. Kyoko wishes for the moment to last for an indefinite amount of time. 

“Tell them you did, then.”

The sound of a yawn rips through the silence. _Who yawned_? Kyoko isn’t sure because she slept sometime before four in the morning.

“What time did you get home?”

“Four? I think. I really couldn’t tell. The lights were off so I couldn’t see the time.”

“You should take the day off.”

Ayaka laughs, as if it’s going to keep her awake for another hour. It does have the effect on Kyoko, though. Tenfolds.

“Take your own advice, Kyoko! Did you sleep at all?”

“I had a healthy amount, actually. Unlike you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Ayaka laughs again, her shoulders doing highs and lows. She laughs way too easily, Kyoko notes once more for the hundredth time this week, and her side profile as she minces spring onion to pieces looks absolutely amazing, Kyoko notes once more for the trillionth time today.

Some strands of Ayaka’s hair come loose and Kyoko auto-pilots her way closer and she does the unthinkable mundane of pulling these strands back behind Ayaka’s ear. The laughter stops. So does the time. And for a momentary high, she picks up on the way Ayaka’s breath hitches.

“Wake Kurumi up for me, Kyoko?”

The time continues.

* * *

Just like The First Mankind, Kyoko gets over things easily, moves on, then falls down the same hole as she stays up past four and falls asleep at four past fifteen. Ayaka comes home at five.

* * *

Kyoko gets to relearn that Ayaka cries very easily the one night she doesn’t have work. Kurumi is sitting slumped against her watching the TV with glass case for eyes while her mom cries alongside the guest of a particularly emotional prime-time talk show.

She goes on an evening walk and comes home with ice cream and snacks because it’s August and not because the night is worth a celebration. Not because the moment is to be held with the utmost care, like it’s something sacrosanct. 

Kyoko had bought a lot of the gummy candies with the frog in the packaging because the other day, Kurumi said it was her favorite. To which Ayaka quips: “This is such a dad thing to do.” She turns to Kurumi. “Kyonko-nee is going to buy you those for the rest of your life.”

“I won’t!”

(Kyoko stocks ten more.)

* * *

Kyoko also relearns that Ayaka never quite left her red light district extravaganza behind even when she had tied the knot with Keigo, however fucked up that sounds.

Keigo is a _very_ nice man, but Kyoko knows there has to be, uh. Complications. The idea is that Ayaka has never been the type to obey, but there must have been compromises made, or maybe Keigo was willing to go with it all because Ayaka’s smile has always known all the way to the heart-valve of many, and the wider, the deadlier. 

The Devil got banished for refusing to submit out of sheer pride. Is that what Ayaka’s on too? The pride of being a free bird of a nightingale variant?

The night is young and Kyoko is still trying to get her muscles to unclench after hours of work. Ayaka totters out from the bedroom, looking slightly hurried. She turns around a little, her back facing Kyoko and Kyoko sees skin. The zipper is only halfway done.

“Kyoko? Help me zip it up?”

Ayaka is sort of looking at her over the shoulders, and she says it in a way so cute that Kyoko short-circuits for some seconds before she wills herself to stand up. Walk. Pull her zipper up.

There’s nothing particularly interesting about helping someone with their back zipper, but Kyoko’s willing to trade all her worldly possessions for the ordinary.

What Ayaka and Keigo had was by no means ordinary. Kyoko selfishly thinks that the second time's the charm. She holds onto the zipper and moves it all the way up and prays that Ayaka won’t notice how she goes slow.

“Thanks, Kyoko.”

How does the act of zipping up Ayaka’s clothes spiral into Kyoko feeling like she wants to hold Ayaka in her arms and to tell her to stay when she wouldn’t even do that for Keigo, when she’s a chaotic force that comes home before dawn with pieces of men’s hearts scattered along her steps? Madness, Kyoko. Madness.

* * *

Is she in love with Ayaka or what she imagines Ayaka to be?

* * *

Instead of seeking therapy, she sits in a _seiza_ form in front of Keigo’s _butsudan_ altar like he’s The All-Knowing. She makes Kumi come over just in case Kurumi wakes up in the night to pee only to catch Kyoko weeping, because she trusts the mind of a research assistant more so than Mirei’s. Or Shiho’s, who’s on the brink of breaking up with her boyfriend.

Kyoko starts talking about the weather. Kumi has her hip digging the kitchen counter as she watches her meal in the microwave making another spin.

It starts with a report on Kurumi’s recent addiction with popsicles and the new friend she made at school, summing into a grand total of four. The night rolls and Kyoko’s self-control

“Aya is doing alright.”

She decides that lying to the dead seems futile.

“No. No, she isn’t alright. But neither was she when you introduced her to me. I don’t think she’s ever been, but we both couldn’t really tell.” _Why?_

“I want to understand her better, but you probably never did either.”

Kumi finds it her cue to interject as the only fully living person in the vicinity. “Can’t you say anything nicer to the dead?”

“I want to hold Aya in the most non-platonic way possible. Take me along with you, Keigo.”

She gets punted by Kumi smack in the ass and crash lands right before the altar, face-first.

* * *

Sometimes the night is still fairly young and Kurumi doesn’t want to sleep just yet and Ayaka’s absence is enormously felt. Today, she meekly asks Kyoko if they can watch something together that isn’t the TV.

She illegally streams a cartoon with her laptop and Kurumi sits closer to her than ever before. 

Ayaka comes home much earlier, sometime around 2 AM, and Kyoko is catching up with work to compensate for the bonding session with Kurumi. 

“You’re early.” Kyoko can’t will herself enough to take her eyes off the monitor, not with the smell of smokes choking her into nausea. It’s the image of the men whose drink Ayaka had poured for.

“And you’re staying up too late. Don’t do that.” Still, she can _hear_ Ayaka’s smile. 

“You don’t stay up late, too.”

“‘Course not. I’m hitting the bed soon as I’m done with the shower.”

The sound of water hitting the floor lulls Kyoko to sleep, however uncomfortable the coffee table is. She wakes up with her laptop sapped of its power, a back pain, and a cover draped around her.

* * *

On a Saturday where Kurumi looks morbidly bored, Kyoko musters everything in her to unlatch herself off the couch. She sails her knees across the floor to Kurumi, plops her arms on the table and adds her head on top. “Wanna go out?”

“Why?”

“Lunch.” 

Not unlike a lighthouse, her eyes flit around, in search of something.

“We can buy mom food later when we pick her up after she’s done.”

“Why don’t we just eat at home?”

“Aren’t _you_ bored?”

“Mom said we can go see the fishies tomorrow.”

“The fishies? Oh. The aquarium. The place with a lot of glasses, right?”

“Yeah. We’re seeing fishes tomorrow, Kyoko-nee.”

Kyoko recalls Ayaka vaguely asking her if she’s free this Sunday and she remembers vaguely giving her a _yes_ in sleep-deprived mumbles. 

Still, the problem at hand is. “But that’s tomorrow. Today’s today.”

“But if we go outside today, can we still go out tomorrow?”

She’s aware that kids ask a lot of questions, so she answers Kurumi’s while multi-tasking the act of popping into the group chat if the One Piece collaboration Happy Meal toys promotion that she saw in passing a week ago is still on. Kumi replies _YES_ in a heartbeat and asks if she could go with Kyoko since she has no classes until the evening. Kyoko doesn’t mind Kumi’s company, but she DOES mind Shiho, Mirei, and Mao’s _which McDonalds?_ replies that follow.

Kyoko drives the longer way to the McDonald’s chain because apparently Kurumi enjoys watching scenery come and go. The motion picture feels of watching pedestrians crossing in pairs, in groups, in comfort and in shambles.

They’re the last to arrive. There’s Mao doing a monologue, Shiho sobbing into her palms, and Mirei stealing the tissue box from the table beside theirs. She spots Kumi, the sole responsible adult, lining up for the cashier. 

“They,” Kurumi points towards the group of Kyoko’s non-friends.

Kyoko hurriedly shushes her. “... aren’t! How about we get the table outside?”

“But it’s cool here, Kyoko-nee…”

“F-for the picnic feel, you know - ”

“Kyoko! Kurumi-chan! Over heeeeere!” Mao calls out to her with the enthusiasm of a court jester.

The walk to the table is what Kyoko would call a walk of shame, having to go through the stares of some concerned mothers and annoyed others. Kyoko stops Kurumi on her track to the seat beside Mao and seats herself between the two in the highly probable case of Mao slipping up and start spewing inappropriate things.

Not even a full 30 seconds since she unwillingly joined the party, Shiho blows a huge one into her eighth tissue. 

“Ew!” Kyoko loudly exclaims her disgust, but it gets drowned out by Mao and Mirei’s laughter. Shiho bawls louder. “Did she finally break it off?”

Mirei holds a hand up. “She was _about_ to tell him that they need to talk. But. Guess what!”

“He dumped her first.”

“Correct! I know it’s getting predictable!”

Shiho sends Mirei a sideway shove. “Shut the HELL up! At least I wanna be the one doing the dumping after he’s seen three women and one MAN over our two years of relationship!”

Kyoko feels her shoulder loosen. She certainly didn’t expect Shiho to have that unnecessarily high tolerance in dealing with men that reside in the abyssal floor of the barrel. “Oh my god.”

“I think I’m gonna be homophobic for a while. Sorry, Kyoko.”

“SCREW YOU! What’s ONE man to THREE women?!”

Shiho throws a used tissue at her. “Let me cope, geez! I’m sad, single, 27 and at this rate I’m gonna die ALONE! No way in hell Kuromame would outlive me, I’m gonna need some other twenty pet dogs. Do you want me to die alone with twenty pet dogs, Kyoko? Do you?”

“C’mon Shiho, consider something rare and cute, like meerkats. You might get featured on _Doubutsu Peace_!”

Mao flies off her seat and tries to stop Shiho from wringing Mirei’s neck in the lunchtime of a chain store where half of the eyewitnesses are kids. 

Fearing her non-friends might have traumatized Kurumi, she looks to her side and finds Kurumi… laughing. Genuine laughter where her body rocks back and forth and her eyes snapped into two happy lines.

Of course the child of Takamoto Ayaka would find interpersonal conflicts amusing. 

“I’m never getting marrieeeeed…”

“Not true. We can have a platonic marriage if you’re past thirty and still in the market.” Kumi declares with a tray of burgers and fries and chickens and two sets of Happy Meal. _Two?_ Mao trails behind her with a tray of the drinks.

“Will you really take me in, Kiku-chan? No homo though, I’m traumatized. Oh my god. Oh my _god_. Is that why he asked me to.”

Mirei looks up from her first big bite of filet-o-fish. “Whuh?”

“Kurumi-chan, which one: Zoro or Law?”

“Zoroooo!”

“Oh my GOD. I know what you’re talking about!”

“SEE. Bau gets it!”  
  


Mirei looks like she’s about to snap. “Well I DON’T!”

Shiho casts a quick side-glance at Kurumi. “I _can’t_ . You know! From the _behind_!”

“Behind WHAT?”

Mao stands up and the sheer force of her ass sends the chair tumbling into a loud _thud_ that captures the attention of many, mid-chicken and mid-fries and mid-Big Mac. They then witness Mao’s pantomime of a gyrating hip movement that doesn’t seem to see its end as Mirei continues to struggle trying to register what it _means_. 

Kyoko stretches an arm for the furthest burger and calculates the placement for it to block Kurumi’s view of Mao.

Someone somewhere must have already taken a footage of this, ready with the caption along the line of _abduction_ or _desperate aunties and their poor poor baby cousin_. None of them would look responsible enough to be mistaken as Kurumi’s mother.

At least they’re seeing fishes tomorrow.

* * *

Kurumi is burning up. Ayaka robotically changes her cool compress and she’s stricken and silent, reminiscent of the wreckage fresh off a house fire.

Sitting on the other side of Kurumi’s futon, Kyoko downs her spit, thinking it would put out her scorching throat.

“What did you feed Kurumi?”

“McDonald’s. I brought you some too, last night.”

Ayaka looks at her like she just admitted to a heinous crime. Kyoko has no memory of a normal intake of McDonald’s ever being responsible for a killing and above all, Ayaka is _definitely_ overreacting.

Kurumi did wake up to a fever and Kyoko was quick to drive them to a clinic. Ayaka hasn’t been functioning well since morning; juggling both Kurumi and the migraine threatening to split her skull open. Kyoko wants to contribute to nursing _both_ , but at this point it’s safer to assume that she’s a part of the migraine.

“Why did you make her eat McDonald’s for dinner too? I know you suck at cooking and child-rearing but - ”

“She wanted some more, okay!”

“Tell her _no_ then, or - or like, get another take-away. This wouldn’t have happened if I were there - ”

“Then _be there_ !” Kyoko hears herself sounding humiliatingly worked up for someone who mentally called Ayaka out for overreacting. Propelled by the scrutiny of Ayaka’s accusing glare, Kyoko goes on for the kill after confirming that Kurumi is too drowsy to catch any of these. “She’ll be _fine_ in hours, she’s had her meds. YOU, on the other hand. _Where_ were you?!”

“I had work!” Ayaka raises her voice too. “She’s all I have, Kyoko. I thought you understood this much.”

“She wouldn’t be all you have if you, if you _stayed_. With Keigo. With anyone. If you let someone be your home. You’re the one refusing the call for home because you’re too good for a place, right? Because you live by the moment and me and Keigo aren’t a moment,”

Kyoko doesn’t like when she notices all the underlying social cues. She wants to stay the one-track simpleton and not the Kyoko who notices the way the anger left the forefront of Ayaka soon after, taken over by the undercurrent of exhaustion.

And maybe Ayaka isn’t the only one exhausted, if the way Kyoko feels her eyes getting hot and her white knuckles on the one end of Kurumi’s cover are anything to go by. If the bile rising in her throat isn’t just her imagination.

The evidence is piling up. It forms a tower, clawing its way to heaven, ignoring the fire below, the raging storm, the lightning that have become a part of the scene.

“Kei said that he was starting to regret it.”

“What, you?”

“Yeah. Well, not me, our marriage. You know what? Scratch that. Me, in a sense, I guess.”

“Uh, sorry. I was… joking.” _Half-joking_.

“He said he was starting to regret the marriage, three days before…”

“Oh. It was over-exhaustion.”

“Do you think I killed him?”

“Do you?”

“I think. His parents think so, too. I wore him down, then broke him. Aren’t they the same?”

_Well, don’t think_. “Did you kill him?”

“ _Who_ knows, Kyoko.”

God’s rage comes in the form of a lightning as he commits a murder on the tower and the hope that cemented the bricks together. The tower got too close to heaven, to the truth. The tower now falls apart.

“I like you, Aya.”

“I know.”

She had drunkenly confessed to it when she was twenty-three, when Keigo and Ayaka had her towed back into their place. She had sung Mr. Children’s _dakishimetai_ for Ayaka specifically during the nuptials where she drank everyone under the table after. There were countless other instances where they were said in acts instead of words. 

This _I like you_ is her tenth and it serves as nothing but an addition to the statistics.

The stretched skin on Kyoko’s fists start to loosen. They regain their color, bit by bit.

“Will you break me too?”

When Ayaka doesn’t answer, Kyoko takes a leave from the bedroom and inhales the air outside where it’s less constricting. The realization hit her that all this time, Ayaka isn’t The Devil in the sense that she roams the earth ruining others’ lives. She roams the earth because at some point, she’d have to face consequences like every other sentient. She isn’t free; she’s constantly always, for years, on the run. _From what?_

Kyoko wants to understand her. To pick up from where Keigo left off, and understands her.

The same way The First Mankind never bothered to climb back to heaven and instead, he travelled the earth and ran into some more realizations and discoveries. She wants to remap everything she has known so far.

“Mao? Sorry for calling you all of a sudden. Yeah. No, I didn’t get banned from McDonald’s.” Kyoko casts a glance at the door to the bedroom, then makes her voice smaller. “Could you tell me where _Cherry_ works?”

She wants to understand Ayaka.

* * *

She wants to understand Ayaka, so she spent the whole night thinking until the night has somehow folded itself into 4 AM. Her senses are a jumbled mess and Kyoko fumbles with the burning of the incense.

“Keigo,” the picture at the heart of the altar returns her resolute gaze, “I’ve come to a conclusion.”

The time stops for her with bated breath.

Kyoko snaps a finger. “I’m stealing your wife.”

“Sheesh. Do it where I can’t hear it.” Ayaka says, from behind her as she makes her gait to the kitchen, seeking for a glass of water. The time continues.

Kyoko spends a half an hour of her morning locked in the bathroom. Doing some soul-searching, she says.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fic first came from the idea that kyoko and ayaka are totally on the opposite ends of each other - this realization hit me a year since i started translating for the fandom. kyoko is crazy committed while ayaka shoves everything aside thinking dyeing her hair a lighter color would change shit
> 
> i like that. they make a great fic. now, if only i write well enough to write a good fic


	3. ayaka screwed up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good lord finally

  
  


_ I want to understand Ayaka. _

* * *

Although Kyoko has had her fair share of relationship tumbles and breaks, they more often than not snowball into a goodbye. As such, the one time she needs the break without the snowballing and the toll on her mental health and the social media indirect public vent posts and the goodbye, she’s drawing blanks on what to do.

The evening after Ayaka caught her unholy declaration to a fistful of ashes, Ayaka comes home looking half-awful, half-wanting to fist her somewhere between the eyes. Ayaka would leave an incision. Kyoko, in love, would wear it feeling proud and big.

The reality is that they’re on a break from a non-relationship. 

Or: a relationship where one party has professed their affection for the other by at least a multiple of ten in numbers, and the other party has yet to drop a cutting rejection. It’s a non-relationship because there’s vaguely something and nothing at once. Schrodinger something, as  _ vaguely- _ STEM-girl Sasaki Mirei put it one drunken night.

Kyoko decides to give their non-relationship latency some hands-on experiment, fully aware that god has anger management issues.

“Welcome back.” Kyoko has her eyes on the TV, not registering a single word the variety MC is saying. She helps Kurumi reach out for the remote. “How was work?”

“Great.”

“Oh, that’s nice, Aya.”

“Oh my god.” Kyoko sees the way Ayaka stops midway her power-walk to the bathroom. “It  _ wasn’t _ . Why would it be? Why did you even ask?”

“Get well soon.”

Ayaka doesn’t slam the door because Kurumi is watching with a world of wonder, like an eye before the eyepiece of a microscope. Instead, Ayaka pulls the knob in a manner so menacingly slow and gives Kyoko the look of someone determined to be the most offensive presence in the house for the next three weeks. The door clicks shut.

Kyoko laughs, facing the TV. The  _ owarai  _ duo haven’t reached the punchline yet. Kyoko laughs anyway.

* * *

The thought that lulled her to her short-lived night sleep: does that mean Ayaka won’t pack her lunch anymore? Does that mean she is banished back to the land of unparalleled evil (the cafeteria)? Kyoko slept with a frown and woke up with a deeper frown, feeling cranky as she remembers that Ayaka has decided to hate her guts until she decides not to.

She puts her  _ futon  _ neatly aside and yawns loud enough for Ayaka to hear from the kitchen.

There are fizzes and pops of something fried in oil. Kyoko treads her way to the kitchen. Her eyes spot two lunch boxes and she (mutedly) exhales in relief. “Uh, thanks. I’ll help. Anything I can do to help? I’ll - ”

“Don’t! Just do the clean-up later.”

“Okay. Thanks again, I wouldn’t have to tell Watanabe that I’m back in the cafeteria because we’re fighting.”

“Just tell her we got divorced.”

“I never told anyone we’re married!” The word  _ marriage  _ that she uttered on her own catches onto a fleeting thought. “Do you and Keigo, uh, fight?”

“I guess?”

“Some answer…”

“He would apologize within six hours. Would you?”

Kyoko wordlessly spoons some carrot salad sides into her lunch box. For another minute, she could only hear the soft sizzles of the sauteed ground chicken and the erratic beating of her own bird-boned heart.  _ God has anger management issues _ . Very important self-reminder that narrows her actions into a handful.

“I’m not Keigo. We aren’t spouses.”

“Obviously!”

Kyoko notices the slight wince on Ayaka’s side profile. She also notices the dark circle under her eye. She has a layer of lethargy donned on and it makes her a notch less amazing than the usual.

“Keigo would apologize, but I’m going to stay mad until you stay  _ here _ for us.”

Ayaka practically throws her head Kyoko’s way, and the latter’s heart does a little dance. The kind of dance that medieval court jesters do at the face of the emperor’s ticking time bomb of fury. She holds Ayaka’s glare with a fumbling care.

Kyoko forces out her voice when she notices: “Shit, Aya! The chicken!”

“Oh.  _ Oh _ . Fuck! Kyoko! This is all YOUR fault!”

The smell of something burnt begins to fill the space between them. This is Kyoko’s cue to shower and get ready. The emperor (Ayaka) calls for a time-out. The court jester (Kyoko) honks away in wide steps of clown shoes. Any second later and she might actually lose her head.

* * *

As she finds out much later during the high of her lunch break, Ayaka dumped all the burnt portions onto her meal. Fair enough.

As she finds out from her first three chews, Ayaka’s fury tastes only halfway bitter. Kyoko’s laughter feels weightless.

* * *

Kurumi tiptoes around her question. “Are you and mom OK?”

The question isn’t coherent enough for a coherent answer, Kyoko is thankful for that. Kurumi might find the idea of her mom fighting with her not-mom difficult as much as Kyoko finds it difficult to explain in words. On the coffee table is a pack of gummies open, Kurumi’s favorite, of which half the stocks are depleted. 

Kyoko takes one and chews for a room to think.

“I guess we’re OK, just a tiny bit tired.” Kyoko makes the gesture of holding a pint-sized something, pretending the problem is something pint-sized when it’s actually several tens of pint and some more.

“Um, but… are you fighting?”

“Not really.”

“You two don’t joke anymore.”

It’s a miss on her part that she never really expected kids to catch on things fast. It has only been Day Three and tonight, Ayaka has work, unlike the night before, so she can’t try to rectify the situation by throwing it over to Ayaka with a  _ we aren’t! right, Aya?  _ so all hope is lost because Kyoko is a terrible, terrible liar even after a careful perusal of her brains.

“I’ll make her laugh tomorrow.”

“Liar. Kyoko-nee isn’t funny!”

Being a parent is truly, a labor. It’s not worth it. She once learned that The First Mankind actually bothered to have offsprings even after the banishment and the hundred years of roaming the earth with a side of sexcapades with demons. She blames it on heterosexuality.

* * *

_ hey _

_ kurumi is catching on so tomorrow im going to say something funny _

_ you have to laugh _

_ please answer haha _

_ aya _

**Takamoto Ayaka** **_:_ ** _ if its funny _

_ okay but respond too haha dont just laugh _

(read)

* * *

“You two are fighting!” 

Ayaka’s ridiculously fake attempt at laughing falls apart in a fade-out and Kyoko shoots her a glare from across the room.

* * *

_ well it’s over _

**Takamoto Ayaka** : _youre_ _sleeping outside_

  
  
  


**Takamoto Ayaka** : _ don’t leave me on readddddd _

_ sorry _

_ this is my place?????? _

(read)

* * *

On the latest ongoing saga of the Cold War between them: 

Ayaka takes the meaning of the Cold War way too literally as she binges on ice creams and popsicles and starts having less for dinner to avoid excess sugar and calories.

Drained by the stress of having to share a living space with a womanchild who refuses to say sorry, fellow womanchild Takamoto Ayaka pries some happiness in little icy bites. This wouldn’t be a problem if the concept of sore throat and cold don’t exist, but they’re living in a landscape god banished The First Mankind to, where one is mortal and vulnerable, and two is stronger if not for the crippling existence of miscommunication.

On Day 8 where Ayaka doesn’t have a  _ night  _ shift, she walks out of the bathroom to Kyoko enjoying her very last stock of mint gum-flavored popsicle.

“I’ll buy you another,” Kyoko takes another taunting bite in-between, “in three days.”

“Three days,” Ayaka parrots.

“I’m looking out for your  _ teeth _ .”

Kyoko is bunched up in the couch with a hand scrolling through Twitter like it’s the daily papers and the other securing the half-eaten popsicle. When she looks up, Ayaka has made her way right beside her. No Cold War Space in-between. And Ayaka starts leaning closer, until Kyoko finds her back hitting the air, suddenly wishing for couches to grow some armrests. 

“Oh, they’re fine. They’re rather sturdy, even, you can check ‘em out yourself.”

Kyoko sneaks a glance at Kurumi - engrossed in the squishy stress-relief rubber toy Kyoko bought for her a trip to a convenience store ago.  _ Safe _ . “Aren’t we fighting?”

“You’ve been messing around with me,  _ Kyonchii.  _ But two can play the game.”

“K, Kyonchii?”

The nickname is a bait and the switch comes in the form of Ayaka taking a quick bite of the popsicle. The proximity brings any thinking process into a pause. The look Ayaka flashes as she pulls back gives her a brain freeze.

* * *

Kyoko entertains the thought of Ayaka liking her. Not even romantically, but in the sense that an apparition of Kyoko could, at times, drop by her head. Not in the way a ghost of Ayaka could spend the entire day caterwauling from the unseen corners of her mind. That’s  _ like  _ like. There’s a whole other world of difference.

The ghost of Ayaka in her head is a ghost for a couple of reasons. It haunts her and evokes fear out of her. The spectre fills in gaps where something real should be. And it thins into nothing when The Actual Ayaka comes into view. There’s a sound of the front door getting keyed in.

Kyoko takes her eyes off the boiling kettle as Ayaka walks into the living room. The ghost of Ayaka takes its quiet leave.

The Actual Ayaka, however, looks slightly different, and it looks like the change is very recent as the ghost of Ayaka in Kyoko’s head has yet to project the real Ayaka unto itself. The curls of her hair fall only slightly past her shoulders.

Kyoko rubs an eye. “Welcome back.”

“You’re not in bed? It’s 2 AM,”

“I’m making myself a cup noodle. I think I had too little dinner.”

“Oh,”

Kyoko opens the lid to ascertain that she boils enough water for two cups. “Have you eaten?”

There’s a slight, hesitant pause right after Ayaka placed her purse on the coffee table. “We had a full house today so - not… yet.”

“Okay.” Still eyeing Ayaka’s back, Kyoko takes another cup of  _ Shin Black _ .

Ayaka stops before the door to the bathroom. She doesn’t bother looking over her shoulder, but Kyoko is fine with that. “Thanks, Kyoko.”

She prepares two cups of  _ Shin Black _ . The kettle puffs out steam in no time. She places one on an end of the dining table and one on another. And she waits for both the noodles to soften and for Ayaka to finish ridding herself off smokes and love-starved middle-aged men in the shower. The wait feels stretched. The ghost of Ayaka begins to restructure itself.

The wait ends the moment Ayaka seats herself across her. She looks even more tired when the mask is off, when she is unclenched, and Kyoko is, admittedly, half-delirious from the lack of sleep, but something about  _ this _ feels  _ great _ . The comforting silence that blankets them. The soft sputtering of the air conditioner. The Ayaka.

Something snaps. Kyoko inclines her head and there’s Ayaka looking straight at her.

“Does it look good or not?”

“What,”

“The hair!”

Kyoko grabs her glass of water and downs them because otherwise she would smile, and Ayaka would see, and things would be too much for a conversation that takes place in an ungodly hour. “Not bad.”

* * *

(The ghost of Ayaka in her head slips into her dream, hair reaching slightly past her shoulders. She guides Kyoko, who’s almost formless in her own dream, through doors and pathways and finally there’s the final entranceway and the next moment, a movie theater is uncrumpled, landscaping itself for Kyoko and not-Ayaka. 

Not-Ayaka then says, “Let’s get a seat,” then pulls her wrist along in skipping steps to the seats nestled within the second row from the last. The cinema projector blips into life. 

There are ten parts to the home-made movie whose special, limited viewing exists only for the cinema that rests in the underbelly of consciousness. The movie is taken in a first-person perspective that Kyoko is all too familiar with.

Kyoko watches, with unwilling eyes: 

There’s Takamoto Ayaka at 19 watching summer fireworks peppering the night sky. That time, Keigo had an urgency to attend and 21 years old Saito Kyoko was a close friend with the least friends and she was painfully available. Takamoto Ayaka brushes a thumb at the camera and mutters, “Your bangs have gotten too long.”

The biggest show of the night plunges itself to the sky. When it scatters in a loud  _ bang _ , a sentence is overpowered into mumbles. Kyoko remembers what it was all too clearly:  _ I like you _ . Takamoto Ayaka doesn’t turn her head because the movie goes for much longer. 

There’s Takamoto Ayaka at 20. She has a convenient store plastic bag hooked on a finger and she’s three steps ahead of the camera, and at some point she turns around and says, “ _ Guess what? _ ”

Kyoko answers for the Saito Kyoko in the scene, that time a 22 y.o, “Keigo proposed to her.”

“ _ I - I like you, Aya. _ ”

“ _ Good one, Kyoko _ .”

There’s Takamoto Ayaka at 21 clad in a wedding dress. There’s Saito Kyoko at 23 singing Mr. Children’s  _ dakishimetai  _ where every note is pulled with a weight attached and every melody carries the sinuous notion of everything forbidden against the bro code and society’s norms. Takamoto Ayaka at 21 looks at her, her smile unreadable. “ _ I want to hold you _ ,” Saito Kyoko, 23, crows on.

There’s Satou Ayaka at 21 barging into Saito Kyoko’s place one night, a week after she tied the knot with Keigo. She’s drenched from the afternoon downpour. Her eyes are wet, but Saito Kyoko’s logic chalks it to the rain. Satou Ayaka comes to seek shelter, and Saito Kyoko the buffoon means it all too literally.

There’s Satou Ayaka at 22, peering with worries into the camera. The camera is jittery and goes out of focus every so often and the  _ I like you _ is said slurred, and Takamoto Ayaka doesn’t sound particularly thrilled when she says, “ _ You drank too much, Kyoko _ .  _ Don’t - no… stop, stop doing this _ .” 

Kyoko closes her eyes when Satou Ayaka turns 23. This is her parting statement to all the Saito Kyokos and her pathetically mumbled  _ I like you _ s. Her eyes burn behind her eyelids. She hears Saito Kyoko, 24, says:  _ I like you, Aya _ and Kyoko retaliates inside her head,  _ you dumbass, you don’t  _ like _ her. You don’t know her. Us both, we don’t know her _ .)

* * *

When Kyoko is finally fully awake, she’s halfway done with her breakfast and Kurumi is in the middle of telling the two adults in the room a recount of how she made up with her friend a day after they had a disagreement over the cooler  _ Kamen Rider _ . Sneaky.

But also because she’s fully awake, she unwillingly remembers that tomorrow is her birthday, which coincides with the first anniversary of Keigo’s death - the driving force behind why she’s hyper-aware that she will be 28 by midnight.

Kyoko has a plan.

Albeit a terrible one.

“I’m okay now with Chika-chan.” Kurumi emphasizes once more, totaling to the  _ fourth  _ time that morning. Ayaka nods at her with a faux patience. 

Kyoko clears her throat. “Do you have work tonight?”

“Yeah,” and for a second she reconsiders, feeling the weight of Kyoko’s scrutinizing look at her, “I - I know what day it is  _ tomorrow _ , Kyoko. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“It’s fine. Just making sure.”

“Okay.”

“My friends - you know, them. They’re coming over tonight, just letting you two know.” Kyoko turns to Kurumi, feeling  _ very  _ apologetic. “Sorry, Kurumi.”

“It’s okay. I like Kumi-nee. And… and they seem very good friends! They don’t fight and stuff even after the McDonald’s thing… right?”

She could hear Ayaka groaning into her glass of water. Kyoko reaches her for her glass.

And Kurumi tries again. “They don’t fight. Right?”

* * *

The day drags long and the concept of time is wrecked into something unshapely for Kyoko as everything goes quarter the speed. Kyoko, at times, glances at the clock only to find that the second hand crawls in four while her sense of the time moves in a march. Matsuda’s reading of her report feels strange, like the vowels are stretched into thin strips. None of it gets registered into her brains.

The concept of the time feels even less real when the clock hands manage to shore onto 3 PM - from there on, everything goes in sprint whereas Kyoko begins to feel like she needs some more time. 

Kyoko blinks and suddenly there’s Tomita bidding her, “I’ll be leaving first then, senpai!”

And it’s Kyoko’s cue to make her move. The night is young and her agenda for the night is thrice thicker than her usual routine of babysitting her late friend’s kindergartener. The steps to her parked car are hurried in a strange excitement. When she’s close by her cheap, very civil car, she keys it in with the hum of one who drives something sports. 

The drive is slow and at times, playful. Kyoko cherrypicks the road disregarding the length and the width and the density of the crowd. Today’s drive is unfamiliar because she’s heading somewhere as unfamiliar. The time is 9 PM - and she isn’t home.

She answers a call from Kumi. “ _ You need to get a bigger place, I swear. We’re about to throw a party and I hope if anyone swings a leg at Keigo’s altar by accident, it wouldn’t be me. _ ”

“Shit, don’t. Is everyone there?”

“ _ Yeah. The cake is in the fridge. Kurumi-chan had actual long naps so now she’s hyper awake! She’s making Mao a makeshift horse.” _

“Oh my god. Send pics.”

“ _ Oh definite - oh no! Keigo!” _

“Hey!”

The call is cut cold. Kyoko is starting to regret leaving the keys to her place under the rug for her friends.

Her car finally arrives in a part of the town she has never set neither a foot nor a tire before. Everything is blaring in the most obnoxious technicolors known to man. 

The red light district unravels for Kyoko’s eyes to see - the electric signs and boards are brutally frank in their invitation. The street is alive with the mummies of touch-starved men, the witches donning fabrics made of sex appeal, and pimps playing the middle-men from Hell. Kyoko parks her car in front of a convenience store, buys a bottle of Vitamin C drink, and carries it in her hand as her white tucked-in blouses and salmon slacks contrast her surroundings. This is where her walk of shame starts, where she collects stares, and at some point she relays, with a glare, to a pimp suspecting her:  _ Never mind me, for I am no pervert. _

_ Oh you are, random woman on the street checking her phone for every three steps taken. You are. What are you looking for? _

_ I am not, random pimp. I am not here to satisfy my perversion. I am no pervert. _

The address matches. Kyoko walks past the dye of neon pink lighting. The night grows older and passes Kyoko over into the clutch of  _ Sunny Spot _ , which carries a four-point-five rating according to a search engine. The front desk man greets her with a rush of noticeable excitement.  _ A female patron who made an advance payment _ ! How desperate does she come off?

“Saito… ah yes, yes, Goro, you call her over. Saito-san? Where would you like to sit? Are you only by yourself? Somewhere secluded? Ahh yes, yes, trying to monopolize our  _ Cherry _ ain’t ya, Saito-san!”

The seat in the corner allows the illusion of privacy. The man sternly warns her with gritted molars  _ twice _ that sexual contacts are off  _ their  _ table. Bed her where they can’t see. Same rules apply even when they’re both ladies. Kyoko reassures him with a fervent shake of her head.  _ I am no pervert, O tavern worker. I am of a healthy and robust mind, I do not see women that way.  _

He leaves her. Kyoko sinks into the comfort of the cushioned seat. Should she pop a peppermint? Too date-y. Nothing about paid dates are date-y.

Next that comes into her view is a woman followed by who she presumes is a waiter, but Kyoko isn’t entirely sure because her eyes auto-focus themselves onto  _ Cherry _ and her very figure-complementing one piece of a dress that covers too little of her legs and Kyoko’s conscience is pitched sideways.  _ I am no pervert _ . Her eyes hike further up to the defined collarbones. To the full lips, slightly downturned. To the eyes tinted in a hard mix of fury and disappointment. Kyoko feels small, microscopic even.  _ Oh no, she’s hot.  _ Aya…  _ Cherry _ seats herself across her, half-throws her purse on the table, crosses her arms over her chest and throws a leg over the other. Kyoko swallows audibly.  _ I am, I am a pervert. _

Cherry puts on an exaggerated smile, mostly for show, most probably to not get herself reported and later fired.

The waiter asks for their order. As Kyoko knew it, the norm is that the patron buys the hostess a drink too, so after she orders for a bottle of Asahi Super Dry (the audience would then groan in unison), she turns to Cherry. “What are you getting?”

“Ginger ale.”

“Uh, ginger ale it is.”

He makes his leave. Cherry throws the gloves in and across her is Ayaka, looking mortifyingly pissed.

And then there’s silence, thick enough to weight and press against their skin. Kyoko breathes a lungful of air and it’s rich in questions and everything else unanswered. She exhales. Then breathes another lungful as she cowers (and simultaneously, enjoys) being under Ayaka’s stare. Kyoko feels like she’s slowly knived open and she doesn’t mind that much even when she should be.

Ayaka is the one to pickaxe the proverbial ice. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I - what, uh, are, aren’t you supposed to be nice to the customers?”

“I’m not - oh my god - I’m  _ not  _ talking to you.”

Kyoko’s feet autopilot into doing idle taps. The taps sing a song to her:  _ you’re getting giddy, you dumbass, and you’re turning 28 in an hour _ . 

With Ayaka making it clear that she  _ doesn’t  _ want to converse, Kyoko develops a fixation on the table.

Her brows dig deeper and her voice sounds  _ breathier _ , “What the  _ fuck  _ are you doing here, Kyoko?”

Kyoko swallows audibly, louder than her previous one.  _ God’s going to airdrop me in Hell anytime now. _ “I paid for this, okay,”

“Why?!”

“Let me be! It’s my birthday!”

“Well, yeah, exactly! Why are you spending your  _ birthday  _ here…” 

“My birthday, my money! I can spend it however I like since it’s my birthday - ”

Kyoko clamps her mouth shut at Ayaka’s aggressive hiss on a finger held up against her lips. 

“Ssssh! We’ve got a birthday special here,” Ayaka’s voice grows smaller by every word, “they will get the girls in the back to entertain you for like, a half an hour. They will crowd around you. Do  _ you  _ want them to crowd around you?”

At the newly made-known information, Kyoko tilts her head to the ceiling. “That doesn’t sound too bad, actually…”

Ayaka jerks slightly forward and her knee rattles the table into a light shake. “No!”

“Please, Aya! I already paid for like,  _ two hours _ ! This shit is expensive! And it’s my,” Kyoko lowers her voice for the next one word, “ _ birthday _ ! At least let me get my money’s worth!”

“Just… just order food or something.”

“Are you kidding me?! I’m not paying for shitty fries with thrice the price!”

They fall silent. When Kyoko checks her phone, she’s informed that a half an hour has passed, which means she has a half an hour left to midnight, and an hour and a half left to sit through Ayaka looking like she would rather be anywhere but here. Their drinks arrive: a bottle of Asahi, two glasses, and a ginger ale. Kyoko glares at the ginger ale.

“I can’t believe you made me pay for a Cabaret Club Ginger Ale. It better be the best ginger ale you’ll ever have. In your life.”

Ayaka rolls her eyes. “It tastes like something you get from dumping a ginger drink onto a 7UP. It’s my go-to when I have a one-on-one. The trick is, Dearest Kyoko, to remain as sober as you can be.”

She tries not to think too deeply into Ayaka’s words as she reaches for the bottle’s neck. That is, until Ayaka reaches for it first.

“Let me pour it for you.”

“Hey, uh, it’s okay. Think of me as… Kyoko. Not a patron or anything.”

“I’m working,  _ Saito-san _ . They have cameras installed, and stuff. I don’t wanna get fired.”

“Okay. You can pour yourself too.” Kyoko pauses, feeling stupid. “Wait, you have to stay sober. God. I’m so stupid, sorry. Not that I’m going to do anything!”

Ayaka offers her a glass and Kyoko spots a small smile. “I know. What can you even do anyway?”

“Haha, yeah. Hey!”

Kyoko has a gulp of her very ordinary fix of Asahi.

“What do you usually talk about, with your patrons?”

“Whatever they want to talk about. They aren’t really here for conversations, you know… we mostly just listen and pamper them with attention. Make them feel like they’re the hottest shit. Say things their aging wives wouldn’t say to them.”

“Woah. Men.”

“I’m telling you, it’s easy money, and this work…  _ distracts  _ me.” Ayaka places a chin on a palm, and Kyoko finds her stupidly attractive with her eyes highlighted by a tint between orange and red, upturned, and expectant.

“Do you… do anything else? Besides cooing them and pouring their drinks. I still have at least an hour left.”

“Do you smoke? I can light it up for you.”

“I can smoke.”

Ayaka snorts and Kyoko takes a light offense. “You don’t smoke, Saito-san.”

“Keigo taught me how, some  _ time  _ ago.” She raises a hand to signal for the male waiter, hoping for one available, but Ayaka signals her to drop her hand. So, she complies. “What?”

“I have a pack with me. Mevius 6 milli. Let me get it.”

She feels her jaw going slightly slacker as she watches Ayaka rummaging her purse with a practiced ease. “You smoke?!”

“I  _ learned  _ to, Saito-san. Sometimes they ask me to and I gotta keep the mood going, you know.” 

This is the part where every other humdrums of others in the world go way too quiet for Kyoko to hear as they make way for the pulse drumming within her throat. There’s Ayaka sliding into the spot beside her with a stick and a lighter in hand. There’s Ayaka with disinterested eyes slipping something between her parting lips. Everything about this is downright terrible. Kyoko averts her eyes, emboldening the fact that she’s unnecessarily excited. An eternity or a nanosecond later, there’s a click and a lighter torched on.

As Ayaka motions close enough for Kyoko to feel her breathing against her. Kyoko watches the fire. She entertains the idea of how she’s probably burning brighter than the 1977°C fire off Ayaka’s striking blue Bic lighter. She doesn’t humor the thought of how Ayaka has done the exact same to her hundred-something patrons.

She doesn’t smoke, so at her first clumsy intake of the smoke, she crumbles into coughs and wheezes and laughter. There are arms around her and in-between the smoke bugging her senses, there’s a scent of vanilla. 

Kyoko forces herself to inhale the vanilla.

“Kyoko? Kyoko? Please! You  **don’t** smoke!”

Kyoko feels her throat lit and her eyes red and dry and yet, she laughs. “You called me Kyoko.”

“Yeah, I kinda had enough of calling you  _ Saito-san  _ when you’ve been acting so dumb. Let’s - let’s just talk, alright?” Ayaka puts out the cigarette on the ashtray. The edge is crumpled under the force of a furious, furious Ayaka.

“Okay.” It dawns on Kyoko all too late that Ayaka is now sitting beside her. She feels much more humane now with the frown and the half an arm length of distance. “Sit here still.”

“But no touching, that’s in the rules.”

“Shit, I won’t. God. What should I talk about?”

“I don’t know, work? Not that there’s anything about it that I don’t know already.”

Kyoko’s gaze follows the droplets outside her glass as they skid along downwards. “Can I talk about my lovelife?”

“You… you  _ have  _ one? I thought you liked me.”

“I didn’t pay for you to be mean to me!”

“Okay, okay. Go on.”

“So yeah, I’ve been in love with the same person for seven years now. I don’t think that’s healthy at all. Thoughts? Like what should I about it? She’s available but only because her husband has passed away.” Kyoko swigs a gulp. “Ah, forgot to add that she doesn’t feel the same.”

“Honestly? If she isn’t creeped out yet by now I think she likes the attention.”

“Oh…” Kyoko feels like she just gets run through with a sword. It’s not something a drink can fix. “Pour me a glass, please.”

“Okay.”

“Should I give up?”

“Don’t! She likes the attention. I think.”

Kyoko downs the whole glass. “This sucks. I’ll be 28 in 10 minutes. My parents will start to urge me to marry. They said 29 is my limit because by 30 all hope is supposedly lost. How do I break it to my parents that I’m in love with someone levels above me?”

It looks like Ayaka is processing some information going by her pursed lips. When she looks back up to Kyoko, her hair falls into her eyes. “I don’t think she’s levels above you. I think they’re both losers in life. You give too much, she takes too much.” Ayaka laughs and it sounds derisive, almost acidic. “Some pathetic, ungrateful bitch she is.”

She wants to prod further, but internally, she’s panicking as she juggles her conversation with Ayaka while also setting up a video call with Kumi. “Ungrateful yeah, but I don’t think she’s pathetic. I think she’s just looking for something.”

“What do you think is she looking for?”

She doesn’t want to belong the way The Devil roams the earth. That much, Kyoko is sure.

Kyoko places her phone on the table sideways, resting against the wall. The call connects and on the other end is their  _ non _ -friends and Kurumi. Except for Kurumi, they all look too old for the party hats, but Sarina insisted on buying a pack so that Kurumi could experience a party. 

“Are they… at your place? Kurumi?!” Ayaka looks dumbfounded, especially at the fact that her child is still awake so late.

“Yeah, they’re over at ours. Kurumi had one nap too much, so she’s way too awake now.” Kyoko feels herself shrinking under Ayaka’s suspense of disbelief. “C’mon, she’d probably pass out anytime now. It’s the weekend and there’s no school tomorrow, right. So she can, um, sleep in. Right? S, stop glaring at me!”

Ayaka abandons her entirely for the video call and waves back to Mirei and Sarina. Off-screen, Shiho shouts, “ _ In a minute! _ ”

Ayaka half-shouts back at the screen, fighting the noises of a hostess bar at midnight, “Is Kyoko making you do all this?”

Manafi answers for her with Kurumi sitting on her lap while everyone else struggles with the cake box. “ _ Nope, this is all voluntary! We’re celebrating her last year? Years? Of freedom!”  _

Kyoko hears Ayaka laughing at the screen and Kyoko finds herself smiling, however embarrassing their non-friends are. Thirty seconds to go. She docks her arms on the table, relaxed that everything is smooth-sailing. 

“You’ve got nice friends, Kyoko.”

“You won’t hear me telling them this, but… I can’t be happier.” She finds her voice, stuck somewhere on the full glean of her smile. “I can’t be happier, spending my birthday with them and Kurumi and you.”

Five seconds to go. Ayaka turns to her and they’re so close that Ayaka burns brighter before her eyes, not in the way that she’s a star, but in the sense that at some point in her life she must’ve downed a star in its entirety. Kyoko trains her eyes onto the screen because she’s told to not to stare at the sun.

Three, two, one…

Ayaka has her eyes on her. Solely on her. “Happy birthday, Kyoko.”

Kyoko has her eyes on the screen as her friends bring out the cake with the candles purposefully placed, “ _ 82 _ ” while Mao and Kumi unfolds the banner that reads, “ _ Please forgive our Kyoko _ ”. Kyoko shoots an arm and slams the screen of her phone flat onto the table.

Ayaka whips her head to the phone, then back at her. “ _ What  _ just happened?”

“The connection’s cut off.”

Naturally, Ayaka doesn’t buy it. She doesn’t pursue it either. “So much for spending your birthday with your friends and Kurumi and me.”

“I… still have an hour left, right? Can we continue where we left off?”

“Sure. What do you think is  _ she  _ looking for?”

Kyoko sneaks an arm to fish her phone closer all the while without breaking eye contact with Ayaka. Because for the first time in years, she’s finally seeing the picture in its clearest and whole fullness. Questions are pieced in together by long due answers. Kyoko is no longer condemned to question for elongated eternities. Ayaka is no longer a non-conclusion.

_The Devil roams the earth_ _in haste, to run_.

Kyoko cuts the video call off, then pours the beer for two. “She isn’t ready for a home yet. She wants someone who’s willing to wait.”

They toast to Ayaka’s giggles. She doesn’t sound freed. She’s always, always been free.

* * *

Though she’s in a close fight with drowsiness, Kyoko drives home with a smile and her lungs packed with helium. The clicks and hits of Ayaka’s nail against her phone screen keep her car’s stereo dormant and jobless.

Kyoko almost misses a turn.  _ Silly her! _

“You’re going to hate this,” beside her, Ayaka shoves her phone onto her. Shiho’s latest post is the “birthday party” held in her place, captioned:  _ kyoko’s birthday party! (without kyoko) _ .

“I  _ hate _ them,” she replies in-between smiles.

* * *

Saito Kyoko, now a 28 years old, wakes up with a lot to take in: the spicy scent of Chinese dishes, Mirei screaming bloody murder at Shiho, Ayaka sitting on top of her, and Kurumi jumping onto her sides. She might die, but she’d also die the happiest woman alive, she thinks.

“Sleepyhead!” She hears Ayaka and Kurumi screaming point-blank at her face. Her imagination runs its course as her eyes fear to shoot open.

There’s the off chance that god and his anger management issues would lord over her happiness and place taxes on everything that makes her happy. Kyoko turns over, eyes still shut, and pleads for five more minutes.

Kurumi jumps her harder and Kyoko’s scream sounds inhumane to her own ears. Ayaka rumbles in laughter and it sounds way, way too pristine to be something coming out of Takamoto Ayaka as she had always known her to be.

At the age of 28, Saito Kyoko says it once more,  _ I like you, Aya. _

* * *

One day:

She burns the incense for Keigo and sits in seiza before Keigo’s framed photo. The night has hit a lull. Kyoko puts her palms together. 

“I don’t mean this too literally since it’s not legal yet in here but, please bless me and Aya together.” 

Behind her, Ayaka closes the fridge shut and declares, “You’re taking my last name!”

* * *

Another day:

The moon is nudged into showing itself whole. She knows this because she has forgotten to close the blinds and the night looks to be much brighter - but she couldn’t care less. There’s Ayaka to think about. Right now, yesterday too, and admittedly the past few restless months.

There’s Ayaka to think about right above her with her palms pressed at each side of Kyoko’s head. There’s Ayaka looking at her like she’s a prey, a catch, and a savior all at once.

Kyoko finds her nails digging into the futon when the thigh in-between her legs inch closer.

“It’s getting tiring, Kyoko. Running, that is. It’s…” Ayaka inhales, and she thinks Ayaka might accidentally take in parts of her, “... it’s all I’ve been doing, for years. In a way, it’s how I atone for things, too.”

She watches Ayaka’s eyes flutter the way a red curtain is drawn close. They invite her curiosity to find out what’s behind.  _ Do you dare to? _

“I’ve liked the same person for seven years now, Kyoko. I realized it all too late because I kept on running but right now, I’m still running,” Ayaka’s head drops lower (and Kyoko chews the inside of her mouth), “I wouldn’t be, had god mixed up the order I met her and him.”

She tucks a strand of hair behind Ayaka’s ear. Not because the stray strand tickles her under. She just likes seeing the slight flinch rippling Ayaka’s composure broken. 

“How does that person feel about you?”

Ayaka smiles against her cheek. “She likes me back, tenfold. More so than I’ll ever like her.”

“Evil.”

As Ayaka presses herself closer, Kyoko cues her hands to loop themselves around Ayaka, to feel the way Ayaka herself is doused in fire. In hunger, in want, in needs, in her worst, in everything god has forbidden.

But that’s the thing - The First Mankind never bothered to climb his way back to heaven. He roamed the earth, picked up on discoveries, ran into realizations, sexed demons up, bore unholy offsprings, and enjoyed every second of it. What god should’ve warned him is that there’s no Hell like earth, and The First Mankind felt right drowning in wrongs. The Devil, on a run, kept him company. He felt at home. He might be The Devil himself.

“Do you take me to love, to respect, to console through the best and worst, to be with until death do us apart?” 

Ayaka doesn’t really give her the space and time to answer as she kisses her with hunger, want, and needs and everything terrible and she has a hand through Kyoko’s hair there are occasional, nigh-noticeable pulls and Kyoko lets her. Kyoko lets her because she doesn’t kiss Ayaka back, instead, she lets Ayaka devour her whole.  _ I do, Aya, I do _ .

* * *

On a good day:

The night is young and Ayaka has her back turned to her. The zipper is only halfway done.

“Help me zip it up?”

There’s nothing particularly interesting about helping someone with their back zipper. There’s nothing particularly interesting about a Wednesday either. 

Before the look Ayaka throws over her shoulder, Kyoko decides that it’s fine to walk through fire. One fine Wednesday, she feels oddly invincible. 

The zipper is coldly ignored. She wraps her arms around Ayaka and feels her heart drumming against Ayaka’s back. “Stay,” she asks.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there were references to hiraganakeyakizaka46's bokutsuki and nmb's zipper. both great (acc. to me and ayaka)
> 
> its been a fun VERY self-indulgent writing for me
> 
> thank you for reading until the end (all 4 of you) (blows nose)


End file.
